r 


JtA&ohoY. 


Of  THE 
CflVERSITy  OF  M.UfcWS 


ADDRESS 

Founder's  Day 
Mount  Holyoke  College 

'By 

Rev.  Henry  Hopkins,  D.  D 

President  of  Williams  College 


THE  POWER  OF  PERSONALITY 
as  ILLUSTRATED  in  MARY  LYON 

FOUNDER'S  DAY  ADDRESS 


BY 

REV.   HENRY   HOPKINS,  D.  D. 

PRESIDENT  OF  WILLIAMS  COLLEGE 


MOUNT    HOLYOKE    COLLEGE 

SOOTH    HADLEY,    MASS. 
1902 


M 


INTRODUCTION 

OUNT  Holyoke  Seminary  was  opened  on  Nov. 
8th,  1837,  and  Mary  Lyon,  the  founder  and 
the  principal,  was  permitted  on  that  day  to  greet 
eighty  students.  Founder's  Day,  now  an  annual 
observance,  is  intended  to  keep  alive  the  memory 
of  that  event  and  the  character  and  achievements 
of  the  great  woman  who  conceived  the  idea  of  this, 
the  first  permanent  institution  for  the  higher  educa- 
tion of  women  in  the  country,  and  who  had  mainly 
by  her  own  exertions  gathered  the  funds  with  which 
to  put  up  the  building  and  launch  the  institution. 
This  year  this  event  was  observed  at  the  College 
on    Friday,     Nov.    7th,     under    delightful    conditions. 

4  The  weather  was  perfect,  there  was  a  goodly 
gathering  of  Trustees,  Alumnae  and  friends,  and 
the  audience  that  greeted  the  speaker  of  the  day 
in  the  Mary  Lyon  chapel  at  eleven  o'clock  filled 
every  available  seat.  It  was  a  special  felicity  of 
this  occasion  that  Dr.  Henry  Hopkins,  the  recently 
elected  President  of  Williams  College,  was  the  guest 
of  honor  and  delivered  the  address.  His  subject 
was    ' '  The    Power    of    Personality    as    Illustrated    in 


9.10999 


Mary  Lyon,"  and  it  was  treated  in  a  most  happy 
and  interesting  way,  holding  the  attention  of  every 
one  of  his  auditors  from  first  to  last.  It  presented 
a  fresh  study  of  Mary  Lyon,  her  character  and 
her  achievements,  which  won  the  admiration  of  all. 
The  Trustees  were  so  highly  pleased  with  this 
address  that  at  their  meeting  in  the  afternoon  it 
was  unanimously  voted  to  ask  a  copy  for  publication. 


ADDRESS 

THE  evolutionary  trend  of  all  our  thinking  is 
bringing  in  a  new  era  of  enlightenment  and 
blessing.  We  are,  however,  in  continual  danger 
of  being  swept  away  by  this  current  from  established 
truths  and  vital  principles.  Having,  for  instance,  been 
made  aware  of  the  great,  irresistible,  universal,  imper- 
sonal causes  that  are  molding  and  changing  human 
society,  the  present  thought  of  our  time  is  coming  to 
minimize  and  almost  to  count  for  nothing  the  individual 
and  personal  element  as  a  factor  in  these  changes.  As 
the  seasons  march  their  round,  so  civilizations  dawn 
and  darken ;  cities,  empires,  rulers  and  races  of  men 
rise  and  fall  as  the  tides  ebb  and  flow.  The  forces  that 
lift  and  lower  humanity,  that  bring  on  and  hinder  the 
better  day,  are  cosmic  forces.  So  be  it ;  but  it  is  not 
true  that  in  the  grasp  of  these  we  are  powerless:  it  is 
not  true  that  in  the  presence  of  these  it  is  idle  to  seek 
to  change  anything,  and  that  we  are  ourselves  swept  on 
helpless  by  the  mighty  current.  It  is  true  that  these 
very  forces,  if  they  cannot  be  set  aside  or  ignored  by 
us,  can  be  made,  and  are  being  made,  increasingly 
co-operative  with  us.  It  is  even  true  that  the  intelligent 
fore-ordaining  and  creative  will  of  man,  working  of  set 
purpose  with  God,  is  molding  the  forms  and  determin- 


ing  the  direction  of  evolution,  the  evolution  of  the 
individual  and  the  evolution  of  society.  It  is  indeed 
well  for  us  to  comprehend  the  sweep  and  movement  of 
the  cosmic  forces,  and  to  be  mindful  always  of  the 
limitations  they  impose  upon  us;  but  it  is  our  special 
business  to  understand  the  might  of  personality,  and 
the  creative  energy  of  the  human  will. 

Prof.  Henry  Churchill  King  has  given  us  a  whole 
philosophy  of  history  in  these  words :  "I  count  it  an 
axiom  that  the  great  facts  of  the  world  are  persons,  the 
greatest  facts  the  greatest  persons,  the  supreme  fact  of 
history  the  supreme  person  of  history ;  and  I  count  it 
indubitable  that  that  supreme  person  is  Jesus  Christ." 
Having  in  mind,  then,  this  personal  element  in  the 
history  of  the  world,  we  may  surely  say  that  it  is  a 
salutary  thing  to  remember  the  lives  of  those  who  have 
been  thus  great,  and  have  been  the  instruments  of 
bringing  great  changes  into  the  world's  life.  To  keep 
the  birthdays  of  the  worthies,  of  patriots  and  leaders, 
to  listen  to  the  lengthening  roll-call  of  the  heroes  of  the 
faith,  to  remind  ourselves  of  the  toils  and  trials,  the 
tears  and  temptations,  and  of  the  triumphs  of  those  who 
have  walked  the  earth  where  we  dwell,  and  have  looked 
upon  the  scenes  that  are  familiar  to  us :  this  is  an  edu- 
cation. Nothing  is  finer  than  homage  shown  to  a  great, 
noble,  forceful  human  soul.  Nothing  is  more  worthy 
than  to  remember  and  honor  a  pure  and  strong  and 
beneficent  human  life.  I  congratulate  you,  therefore, 
upon  the  observance  of  Founder's  day ;  and  in  the 
spirit  of  what  I  have  said  I  invite  you  to  some  thoughts 
connected  with  Mary  Lyon  herself,  rather  than  to  the 
consideration  of  any  abstract  theme. 


The  skylark's  home  is  on  the  ground ;  her  first 
glimpse  of  the  blue  heaven  is  through  meadow  grasses 
from  a  lowly  nest,  but  she  soon  learns  to  climb  the  skies. 
The  free  air  is  her  element ;  far  above  the  earth  she 
soars  and  sings,  mounting  higher  and  still  higher  on 
tireless  wing.  The  singing  never  ceases,  and  long 
after  the  little  speck  in  the  zenith  has  been  lost  to  sight 
there  still  falls  through  the  blue  vault  upon  the  en- 
chanted listener,  in  globules  of  ecstatic  song,  rainbow 
showers  of  melody  ineffable.  The  singer  has  gone  up 
on  high,  but  the  singer  is  not  silent ;  the  singer  has 
passed  within  the  veil,  but  the  song  goes  on. 

Mary  Lyon  began  life  in  an  humble  farm-house 
among  the  Massachusetts  hills.  While  she  walked  in 
lowly  paths  of  service,  her  spirit  soared.  She  early 
learned  that  she  could  climb  to  where  the  earth  looked 
far  below.  She  knew  how  to  work  in  the  world  and 
live  high  above  it,  and  it  was  her  joy  from  heavenly 
heights  to  shed  down  sweet  influences.  Although  she 
disappeared  against  the  blue  fifty-three  years  ago,  the 
music  of  her  life  falls  upon  thousands  of  open  hearts 
to-day.  If  I  can  gather  up  and  bring  to  you  some 
broken  fragments  of  that  song,  my  object  this  morning 
will  be  accomplished. 

Who  was  Mary  Lyon  ?  It  would  be  inappropriate 
in  this  place,  where  all  the  facts  concerning  her  must 
be  familiar,  to  give  more  than  the  briefest  outline  of 
her  history.  She  was  a  teacher  for  thirty-five  years  of 
more  than  three  thousand  young  women ;  a  pioneer  in 
the  higher  education  of  women  ;  an  originator  of  new 
methods ;   a  Christian  of  humble  spirit  and  flaming  zeal , 


a  devout  student  and  a  constant  teacher  of  the  Bible ;  a 
great  promoter  of  revivals  of  true  religion  ;  a  leader  in 
missions,  and  withal  a  specimen  of  the  noblest  type  of 
womanhood.  Her  name  is  especially  associated  with 
Mount  Holyoke  seminary,  out  of  which  in  1888  this 
college  grew.  She  was  the  founder  of  the  seminary 
and  for  twelve  years  its  principal.  The  place  of  her 
birth  was  Buckland,  Mass.,  a  little  mountain  farming 
town.  The  year  of  her  birth,  1797,  was  one  of  deep 
and  general  religious  feeling.  Her  mother  was  a  woman 
of  intense  religious  nature  and  convictions.  The  Bible 
was  almost  the  one  book,  and  the  little  red  school-house 
and  the  church  were  the  only  institutions. 

In  that  mountain  region  she  passed  twenty  years, 
and  there  gained  the  vigorous  health  which  character- 
ized her.  On  that  "  wild,  romantic  little  farm  made," 
as  she  says,  "  more  to  feast  the  soul  than  to  feed  the 
body,"  she  learned  by  youthful  experience  the  maxims 
of  economy,  self-denial,  good  taste,  and  benevolence 
which  she  taught  her  pupils.  She  was  trained  to  spin, 
to  weave,  to  dye,  and  to  arrange  the  autumn  stores  for 
winter  use.  At  fifteen  years  she  was  housekeeper  for 
her  brother.  At  seventeen  she  was  teaching  school, 
"boarding  around,"  at  three  dollars  a  month.  She 
overcame  obstacles,  she  mastered  herself.  From  school 
to  school  she  passed  up  to  high  attainments  and  useful- 
ness; always  unselfish,  always  aspiring,  always  eager 
to  learn  more  and  to  do  better.  Her  teaching  made 
arithmetic,  grammar  and  geography  great  studies.  The 
Bible  as  she  taught  it  excited  deeper  and  more  universal 
interest  than  any  other  study.       Sometimes  she  herself 


studied  twenty  hours  a  day.  She  performed  the  feat  of 
committing  the  Latin  grammar  to  memory  in  three 
days.  She  calculated  eclipses  and  made  an  almanac. 
It  is  evident  that  she  was  unusually  gifted,  but  she  had 
also  a  high  aim,  a  strenuous  purpose,  a  remorseless 
industry. 

To  place  the  possibility  of  a  thorough  and  a  Christian 
education  within  the  reach  of  young  women  at  length 
became  the  controlling  and  absorbing  motive  of  her  life. 
For  this  she  sacrificed  and  planned ;  for  this  she  prayed 
and  labored  through  the  years ;  for  this  her  enthusiasm 
was  quenchless,  and  it  won.  Her  purpose,  expressed 
in  her  own  words,  was  to  provide  "  a  permanent  insti- 
tution, consecrated  to  the  work  of  training  young  women 
to  the  greatest  usefulness,  and  designed  to  be  furnished 
with  every  advantage  which  the  state  of  education  in 
this  country  will  allow ;  to  put  within  the  reach  of 
students  of  moderate  means  such  opportunities  that 
none  can  find  better  ones."  Of  these  words  it  has  been 
truly  said  that  they  need  no  change  to  make  them  em- 
body the  advanced  thought  of  to-day. 

In  1836  the  corner-stone  of  Mount  Holyoke  semi- 
nary was  laid.  Upon  this  corner-stone,  stooping  down, 
she  wrote,  "  The  Lord  hath  remembered  our  low  estate." 
In  1837  the  institution  was  opened  with  eighty  young 
ladies,  eighty  others  being  refused  for  lack  of  room. 
The  second  year  one  hundred  were  received  and  four 
hundred  turned  away.  By  persistent,  insistent,  indomi- 
table effort  she  raised  for  the  school  $70,000. 

This  was  the  first  institution  designed  exclusively 
for  the  higher  education  of  women  in  this  country,  and, 


so  far  as  I  know,  anywhere  in  the  world.  It  was  two 
hundred  years  after  the  founding  in  this  country  of  the 
first  college  for  men.  She  was  certainly  the  leader  in 
the  distinctive  movement  for  the  higher  education  of 
women  under  direct  Christian  influences.  Her  intense 
devotion  to  this  end  is  expressed  in  her  saying,  "  Had 
I  a  thousand  lives  to  give  I  could  sacrifice  them  all  in 
suffering  and  hardship  for  the  sake  of  Mount  Holyoke 
seminary." 

This  in  briefest  outline  was  her  life.  Notice  in 
like  manner  the  wonderful  results  of  this  life.  These 
are,  of  course,  seen  first  in  the  school  out  of  which  grew 
directly  the  magnificent  institution  in  whose  midst  we 
are  to-day.  From  that  school  there  were  two  thousand 
graduates.  Eight  thousand  students  were  for  a  time 
under  its  influence  during  the  sixty  years  of  its  life. 
Concerning  the  college  I  have  no  need  to  speak. 

Results  of  her  life  are  to  be  seen  again  in  the  influ- 
ence exerted  by  her  pupils.  From  under  her  care  went 
Mrs.  Dascomb,  for  seventeen  years  lady  principal  of 
Oberlin.  The  first  lady  principal  of  Vassar  was  also 
her  pupil.  Miss  Shafer  and  Miss  Morgan  at  Wellesley 
transmitted  through  Oberlin  her  influence.  The  first 
president  of  Wellesley,  Miss  Ada  L.  Howard,  was  also 
a  graduate  of  Holyoke.  Mr.  Durant,  the  founder  of 
Wellesley,  said  that  he  got  his  first  impulse  toward  the 
founding  of  that  college  from  Mary  Lyon  and  her 
teaching.  Mr.  Moody  traces  to  Miss  Lyon  the  estab- 
lishment of  his  seminary  at  Northfield  and  Mount 
Hermon.  It  is  safe  also  to  say  that  Dr.  D.  K.  Pearson's 
early  association  with  Mary  Lyon  in   this  valley  were 


largely  influential  in  determining  his  princely  benefac- 
tions to  Christian  education.  In  many  places,  in  our  own 
country,  in  far  away  Africa  and  in  other  lands  there 
are  schools  modeled  after  her  plan  and  shaped  by  her 
ideals.  Hundreds  of  missionaries  and  of  teachers  and 
Christian  women  in  remote  places  went  out  carrying 
with  them  the  ideals  and  principles  formed  in  the  school 
of  which  she  was  the  head. 

How  do  we  estimate  any  woman's  rank?  Surely 
the  criterion  must  be  effectiveness  for  good  rather  than 
culture  for  culture's  sake.  We  do  not  judge  a  person 
as  we  would  a  statue,  by  pose,  by  lines  and  curves,  but 
primarily  by  the  power  to  do.  The  highest  beauty  is 
based  upon,  and  must  be  subordinate  to,  use.  This 
may  rule  out  from  the  first  place  the  charming,  accom- 
plished, versatile  woman  of  the  club,  or  the  brilliant  and 
graceful  modern  literary  woman ;  and  it  may  be  that 
this  would  put  in  her  place  the  quiet  mother  of  a  family 
of  boys  and  girls  whom  she  has  given  to  the  world 
physically  vigorous,  and  in  the  whole  range  of  their 
faculties  well  endowed,  whom  she  has  trained  so  that 
they  are  intellectually  balanced  and  strong,  morally 
earnest  and  sound,  and  spiritually  vital  and  aspiring. 
That  is  noblest  achievement.  This  would  surely  place 
in  the  first  rank  the  gracious,  forceful,  patient  teacher 
of  whole  ^fenerations  of  vouth. 

It  has  been  said  of  Mary  Lyon  that  hers  "  was  the 
most  fruitful  life  lived  by  any  woman  in  the  nineteenth 
centur}'."  How  can  we  account  for  this  permanent  and 
far-reaching  influence?  In  part  by  the  personal  char- 
acteristics of  the  woman  herself.       There  was  certainly 


in  her  a  rare  blending  of  qualities.  She  was  not  angular, 
strong-minded  and  cold,  but  sweet  and  lovable.  She 
was  possessed  of  a  penetrating  intellect,  but  also  of  a 
large  warm  heart.  She  had  a  perpendicular  conscience, 
but  also  a  genial  nature.  Her  life  overflowed  with 
personal  sympathy.  With  a  most  buoyant  temperament 
she  had  also  intense  feeling  and  intense  energy  of  body 
and  mind.  She  certainly  combined  traits  which  are 
seemingly  opposite,  for  she  had  abundant  practical 
talent  and  abounding  spiritual  power.  She  was 
characterized  by  sterling  common  sense  and  mystical 
piety,  —  common  sense  and  piety,  a  combination  that 
made  the  Pilgrims  and  the  Puritans  successful ;  that 
made  the  missionary  Oberlin  in  the  Vosges  successful ; 
that  is  needed  in  every  home  missionary  church  and  in 
every  city  mission  and  every  foreign  field,  also  in  every 
school  where  personality  counts  for  anything. 

We  find  a  reason  for  her  influence  in  the  character 
of  her  ideals.  "  Rightness  "  was  a  great  word  with  her. 
The  legend  carved  over  her  grave,  "There  is  nothing 
in  the  universe  that  I  am  afraid  of  but  that  I  shall  not 
know  and  do  all  my  duty,"  is  the  keynote  of  her  great 
life.  Her  benevolence  was  also  the  greatest,  for  it  was 
intensely  personal,  and  yet  as  broad  as  the  world.  She 
lavished  her  thought  and  kindness  upon  the  weakest 
and  most  unworthy  of  her  pupils  at  the  same  time  that 
she  sent  her  thought  and  efforts  abroad  to  distant  races. 
The  shafts  of  scorn  cast  against  missions  fell  shattered 
at  the  feet  of  such  a  representative  as  she  of  the  true 
Christian  spirit.  Sone  one  has  called  her  the  heroine 
of  altruism.     This  seems  to  me  a  weak  and  inadequate 


expression  to  characterize  her  most  Christlike  love.  (I 
submit,  by  the  way,  that  that  word  altruism  is  largely 
overworked  in  our  time.)  She  was  the  representative 
of  him  whose  love  burned  low  as  the  dust  and  who  yet 
embraced  a  race  in  his  redemptive  purpose.  She  was  a 
true  follower  of  him  who  sought  the  one  lost  sheep  on 
the  dark  mountains  and  who  also  sent  out  his  followers 
to  disciple  all  nations. 

Her  methods  also  account  for  the  influence  which 
she  possessed.  One  only  I  mention  entirely  philosophi- 
cal and  profoundly  Christian.  She  believed  in  and  used 
the  positive  method.  She  would  not  allow  a  father  to 
tell  her  that  his  daughter  had  a  single  fault.  She  used 
to  say  to  her  school,  "  I  usually  find  young  ladies  worth 
a  great  deal  more  than  I  expected ;  when  I  am  disap- 
pointed once  for  the  worse  I  am  ten  times  for  the  better." 
She  had  great  success  with  sensitive  girls ;  her  whole 
policy  was  the  opposite  of  criticism  and  fault-finding. 
In  her  precepts  to  teachers,  she  said,  "Never  be  in 
haste  to  believe  a  pupil  has  done  wrong ;  never  make 
contemptuous  remarks  about  scholars ;  when  children 
have  been  accustomed  to  bad  habits  it  is  better  to  keep 
a  record  of  what  is  right  than  of  what  is  wrong." 

All  greatest  teachers  have  practiced  this  method. 
Arnold  found  Rugby  in  a  frightful  condition.  It  was 
considered  clever  and  manly  to  do  the  basest  things  and 
deceive  the  master  about  them.  Dr.  Arnold  never 
appeared  for  a  moment  to  believe  that  he  had  been 
cheated.  He  said  practically  :  "  Boys,  I  will  not  believe 
in  your  depravity."     Presently  the  boys  were  all  saying, 


What  a  shame  it  is  to  lie  to  Arnold  when  he  always 
believes  you."  His  faith  in  them  burned  up  all  of  the 
faithlessness  in  their  hearts. 

Mention  has  been  made  of  the  singleness  of  Mary 
Lyon's  aim.  With  her  it  was  an  entire  devotion;  it 
was  perfect  consecration.  One  wonders  whether  Mr. 
Moody  could  have  thought  of  her,  or  of  himself  for  that 
matter,  when  he  said,  "  The  world  has  yet  to  see  what 
God  can  do  with  a  fully  consecrated  person."  It  was 
Martineau  who  said,  in  effect,  "  The  mightiest  instru- 
ment in  this  lower  world  is  a  human  soul  cast  into  God's 
hands,  without  doubt  or  fear,  to  be  used  at  his  pleasure." 
As  crowning  all,  the  spirit  of  God  dwelt  in  her  as 
the  informing  power.  The  life  of  God  was  the  life  of 
her  life.  Body,  mind  and  spirit  were  surrendered  to  the 
molding  and  energizing  presence  of  the  spirit  of  God. 
She  was  a  God-inhabited  woman.  This  without  a 
shadow  of  fanaticism  she  realized,  and  this  without  a 
shadow  of  fanaticism  we  may  believe.  The  possibility 
of  this  is  the  foundation  of  all  true  religion.  The 
supreme  power  of  her  life  lay  just  there;  she  was  con- 
sciously and  really  a  worker  together  with  God.  She 
was  thus  in  correspondence  with  the  central  force  of  the 
universe.  We  should  be  unfaithful  to  the  supreme  fact 
in  this  wonderful  life,  and  to  Christian  truth,  if  we  did 
not  say  that  Mary  Lyon  was  in  living  connection  with 
God  through  living  faith  in  Jesus  Christ.  She  was 
what  in  electrical  science  is  known  as  a  "collector.'' 
The  lines  of  a  force  not  her  own  were  gathered  up  and 
transmitted  through  her  just  as  by  a  thousand  wires,  or 
on  wireless  lines,  electrical  energy  is  sent  abroad  to  the 
ends  of  the  earth,  as  light,  heat,  and  power. 


We  are  in  no  danger  of  exalting  too  highly  such  a 
character,  of  doing  excessive  honor  to  such  a  woman. 
The  aureole  of  saintship  has  been  placed  upon  the  heads 
of  many  far  less  worthy  of  it.  We  do  not  kneel  to  pray 
at  her  shrine,  nor  do  we  invoke  her  protection  and 
intercession  for  the  seat  of  learning  she  founded,  but 
we  thank  God  for  her  strong,  holy  and  beautiful  life, 
for  her  wise,  courageous  and  abiding  work,  and  for  the 
perpetual  influence,  sweet  and  gracious,  but  always 
positive,  powerful  and  penetrating,  which  is  to-day 
purifying  and  molding  other  human  lives. 

Mount  Holyoke  college,  enlarged  and  ennobled 
beyond  the  highest  thought  of  its  founder,  can  yet  find 
for  its  glorious  expanding  life  no  loftier  and  truer  ideal 
than  that  which  allured  and  inspired  her,  and  can  build 
its  great  unfolding  future  upon  no  surer  basis  than  the 
fixed  principles  to  which  she  was  faithful. 

Mount  Holyoke  college  is  the  product,  not  of  the 
Zeitgeist,  not  of  any  impersonal  evolutionary  influence, 
not  of  merely  cosmic  forces,  but  is  rather  the  vital, 
personal  embodiment  of  the  thought,  life  and  love  of  a 
multitude  of  thinking,  living,  loving  persons  of  whom 
Mary  Lyon  was  first  and  chief. 


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